Blues blown out by Capitals, 8-1, as Ovechkin scores two

ST. LOUIS — Alex Ovechkin continued his slow, inevitable progress toward Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goal-scoring record and the Blues continued make little progress toward much of anything as they lost for the fifth time in seven games, falling to the Washington Capitals, 8-1, on Saturday night at Enterprise Center.

It's the second time the Blues have lost a game by an 8-1 score in 11 days, having lost to Ottawa by that score on Oct. 29. The smattering of fans who stayed around to the end booed loudly at the final horn.

Ovechkin scored twice bring his career total to 863 goals. He needs 32 to pass Gretzky’s seemingly insurmountable record of 894 career goals. Ovechkin has 10 goals in 14 games this season and, at 39 years old, is on pace for a 50-goal season. He’s halfway toward his 20th consecutive 20-goal season.

The Blues, behind the first goal of Scott Perunovich’s NHL career, kept it close until Ovechkin got his first goal of the game with 12:18 to go in the second period. That was the first of seven consecutive goals by the Capitals, who went up 4-1 on Ovechkin’s second goal, a rare power-play goal for the Capitals, and it was 5-1 less than two minutes later.

Scoring against the Blues is nothing new for Ovechkin, who has 21 goals in 27 career games against the Blues and his goals-per-game against the Blues of .77 is his second highest, behind only .83 against Minnesota.

On his first goal, Ovechkin took a cross-ice pass from Aliaksei Protas and, from the spot in the left faceoff circle where he’s done so much scoring over the years, beat Jordan Binnington. Jakob Chychrun’s goal 3:11 later put Washington up 3-1 and then 2:09 into the third period, he got his second, again from the left circle with an open net to shoot at after Binnington had come out of his net to challenge a shot by Dylan Strome and couldn’t back in front when the puck came over to Ovechkin.

A breakthrough for Perunovich

The Blues drafted Scott Perunovich in the second round of the 2018 draft, and six years later, he got his first goal. In this 79th NHL game, Perunovich finally got a goal with 12:53 to go in the first period.

After a faceoff in the Washington end, Matt Kessel took a pass from Jordan Kyrou at the blueline and found Perunovich, who had started on the opposite end of the line, sneaking through the center of the ice, with no Capitals player nearby and he scored from just a few feet from the top of the crease. Perunovich was mobbed by his teammates, though he had a look that was more like, ‘It’s about time.’

Scoring goals wasn’t a problem for Perunovich at other stops in his career. He scored 20 in three seasons at Minnesota-Duluth, and five in parts of two seasons with Springfield in the AHL. But injuries limited his time and progress and in this season, a make or break one for Perunovich, he’s been a healthy scratch nine times in the first 15 games.

Another early hole

For the second game in a row, the Blues gave up a goal in the first minute of the game. It wasn’t quite as bad as when Utah scored 18 seconds into Thursday’s game. This time, it took Washington 58 seconds to get on the board, as Connor McMichael took a pass at his own blueline, took a circuitous route up the ice and from the high slot that hit the left post, bounced across the goal and hit the right post before going in.

Bolduc stays in lineup as Texier comes out

Zack Bolduc moved into the lineup after Alexandre Texier was a scratch. Texier had skated on the third line in practice on Friday and was one of a handful of skaters on the ice for an optional morning skate on Saturday. Bolduc was expected to come out of the lineup as Kasperi Kapanen returned to the lineup after missing four games with an upper body injury.